ISACA Issues Governance and Assurance Guidance for Big Data

ROLLING MEADOWS, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Big data can save big money. A recent McKinsey report found that value gained from data in the US health care sector alone could be more than US $300 billion every year. But traditional tools aren’t enough to manage these extremely large amounts of fast-changing information. To help enterprises use big data effectively, global nonprofit IT association ISACA issued guidance today on how to manage the chaos and address the business benefits and challenges.

“Enterprises are investing significant capital to develop and deploy big data analytics to obtain an early competitive advantage”

“Enterprises are investing significant capital to develop and deploy big data analytics to obtain an early competitive advantage,” said Richard Chew, CISA, CISM, CGEIT, senior information security analyst at Emerald Management Group and a co-author of ISACA’s new white paper, “Big Data: Impact and Benefits.” “While big data can reap big rewards, it also poses significant risk, including misleading data and unexpected costs. It is critical for enterprises to put in place a governance program to ensure that information remains accurate, consistent and reliable.”

One of the challenges posed by big data is that it has turned enterprises into competitors in some arenas and cooperative partners in others. Consider Netflix and Amazon, whose video streaming services compete, while Netflix uses the Amazon.com cloud infrastructure to support its streaming.

While the need for governance of big data environments is clear, big data governance is still at an early stage of maturity.

“Several issues present challenges pertaining to big data. SCADA systems, social media and financial institutions present enormous amounts of data to sift through and manage,” said Genemar Arthur Lazo, MSBA, CISA, CGEIT, CRISC, CISSP, CEH, manager of vendor evaluation at Walt Disney Studios and research chair for the ISACA white paper. “In addition, the lack of presentation of the data in meaningful data sets and the inaccuracies of real-time data are daunting and challenging. Frameworks such as COBIT help facilitate the balances for managing risk and reward when working with big data for enterprises.”

ISACA’s “Big Data” white paper is available as a free download at www.isaca.org/big-data-wp. The COBIT framework is available as a free download at www.isaca.org/cobit.

About ISACA

With 100,000 constituents in 180 countries, ISACA^® (www.isaca.org) is a global association providing knowledge, certifications, community, advocacy and education on information systems (IS) assurance and security, enterprise governance and management of IT, and IT-related risk and compliance. Founded in 1969, ISACA help enterprises ensure trust in, and value from, information systems. It also advances and attests IT skills and knowledge through the Certified Information Systems Auditor^® (CISA^®), Certified Information Security Manager^® (CISM^®), Certified in the Governance of Enterprise IT^® (CGEIT^®) and Certified in Risk and Information Systems Control^™ (CRISC^™) designations. ISACA also developed COBIT, a framework that helps IT professionals and enterprise leaders fulfill their IT governance and management responsibilities, and deliver value to the business.

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